So should we give up hope?

So many people feel daunted and depressed when they read about the seemingly intractable issues facing our world around Climate Change, water shortages, food shortages etc. This is sad, because I'm sure that most of us are already doing our own things even if only in a small way, trying to change our eating and spending habits for example, recycling where we can, etc. etc. And every little action helps and we should all congratulate ourselves for those. But what if we all tried to change our behaviors in just one more small way - we could all start Ripples of Hope for a better world!

I think it is really a case of finding what appeals to each one of us - we all have different skills, all have things we couldn't possibly do. That doesn't matter. I can think and I can write (at least I think so!) but I'm not hot on the organizing side - some people are quite the opposite - don't ask me to organize a coffee morning or a play group - some would relish it!! 

So rather than focusing on the big picture issues of climate change, population growth, energy and water depletion, all a bit daunting and depressing to some, let's look at other simpler yet powerful ways to do our little bit to help and the simplest thing we can all do is to connect more closely with the food we eat, the choices we make about our life-styles, and the realities of materialism and consumerism and its consequences. Here are a few links to follow up:

The concept of the Transition Town started in the UK in Totnes, but it is now worldwide and gaining significant ground in the US. But this can seem too big and daunting for some, especially if there is no action going on local to your home.

So there is Incredible Edible, which has specifically identified food as a simple yet effective way of contributing to a better world. It started again in the UK, and I am not sure if it has reached the US yet, but on its well developed website it gives lots of ideas and inspiration and encouragement relevant to anyone who has the concern of the world at heart, wherever you live.

For example how about having a meat free day each week? This is something all the non veggies could do once a week - a good start!! - and there's loads of other items and blogs on the site full of ideas for us all.

We vote three times a day when we decide what we eat! Organic? Local? Meat? fair trade? (in sense of ethical trading, not necessarily FairTrade).

You could try the fairtradeusa (every purchase matters) site for a start.

Then for those affiliated to any church or other place of worship are you only using fairly traded tea, coffee, biscuits, wine etc? I have just given a presentation to our own Parochial Church Council Meeting in our church to move this along, and I'm giving a training session in 3 weeks time to a local church group here on making ethical shopping decisions. 

Some Dioceses have already declared themselves FairTrade dioceses.

And there's EcoCongregation - sponsored by A Rocha, to encourage churches to lead by example by becoming "greener" and more eco friendly. Energy efficiency, and so on. Eco-congregation is a tool to help churches begin to address environmental issues in all that they do. It is suitable for all kinds of churches to use, and it has developed across the USA and the UK. 

So there really is plenty we can all get on and do in our own small ways: small things, one step at a time, and don't let yourself be depressed by the seemingly hopeless situation. It is not hopeless at all - but urgent yes!

Finally there are loads of sites on the Internet where if we don't think we can do anything else, we can at least sign petitions! Avaaz is a good place to start.

There you have it. Just a few ideas to start the ball rolling!

Please tell me of your own favorites.  

A Common Word between Us and You - a dialogue between Islam and Christianity

Occasionally I repeat an article across my blogs. I make no apology for this if I believe it to be so important that I want it to reach as wide an audience as possible. So here is one such repeat.

"Arguably one of the most important books of our time. All Christians and Muslims should know about this initiative."

That was how I ended the blog the other day over on my other site Wisdom of Tolerance about A Common Word, the Muslim initiative addressed to Christians, prompted by the Islamic furore provoked in many Muslim countries by part of the Pope’s 2005 Regensburg address.
And the response is said to have been phenomenal. Quoting from the Cambridge Interfaith Programme site, “A Common Word has been the subject of major international conferences at Yale University, the University of Cambridge - facilitated by CIP, Lambeth Palace and Georgetown University, over 600 Articles—carried by thousands of press outlets—have been written about A Common Word in English alone, over 200,000 people have visited the Official Website of A Common Word (and) over 6000 people have ‘fully endorsed’ A Common Word online alone.”

But in the grand scale of things, although these together make for a very promising start, they are but “a drop in the ocean.” As the book so rightly reminds us, there needs to be a trickle down effect to reach the masses, and the learned conferences and articles are but a stage towards that goal. There is a significant proportion of the population that can only be reached by people of influence: by Imams, priests, teachers, lecturers, youth leaders etc. They’re not going to read conference reports and educated commentary. We need that trickle down effect to start working in a big way to reach beyond the intellectual and the well educated, to reach out to the masses, many of whom do not read very widely if at all and may harbour plenty of prejudice born of ignorance and fear. And we need plenty of responsible media reporting and press officers in organizations who can push for that responsible reporting to reach out as far and wide as possible. Because not only can the media be hugely influential in that trickle down effect; They also have the networks to become tentacles reaching out laterally as far and wide into crevices of public ignorance and prejudice as possible. And if we continue the water metaphors, we need Ripples of Hope, because as Robert Kennedy said all those many years ago, in Cape Town in 1966:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

When I think of what needs to be done to promote tolerance and peace, I am reminded of Tariq Jahan, the hero in the Birmingham riots earlier this year after his son Haroon had been killed in the violence. ‘I lost my son.” He said to the angry crowd, “Blacks, Asians, whites, we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home – please.”
Now if every person of influence at grass roots level where there is a choice between violence and anger or dialogue and calm could step forward and speak up for peace between us all in the same dignified way that Tariq did back in August, couldn’t we begin to build a better world for us all?

Australia the next great hope for Climate

 “Right now, a major climate fight is blowing up in Australia -- the government is about to pass a law that would cut carbon emissions and get polluters to pay. But big businesses, backed by Rupert Murdoch, are trying to kill the bill….

If together we can drown out his campaign to crush the bill with 

messages of hope

from across the world, we could help it pass.”

Words quoted from the site of Avaaz.org “a global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.”

This is not just about Australia - it is about the world!

If you care about the future of this earth, and I guess that is why you are reading my blog, then please go to the website of Avaaz
and sign the petition for common sense to prevail over business interests!

When Avaaz reach 250,000 signatures, they say they will run inspiring radio ads that deliver their global messages, laying out the benefits of the law and rousing public support.

The photos are in La Gomera - aftermath of unprecedented flood damage after high tide and rain storm came together. The hotel had to do a massive clean up. I was there and could not believe the devastation. Neither could the locals.

Ripples of Hope

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

 

Robert Kennedy, in a speech he made in Cape Town on 7 June 1966.

Step Two towards a wiser politics

March 3rd was World Book Day.  Let's all of us give our politicians a book - but a rather special one with a serious message that has profound implications for our own futures.

Here is number 2 of 14 proposals for the framework of A Wiser Politics, taken from the book of that name by Jean Hardy. (see my blogs 3rd and 5th March). Here is a list of truths that Hardy says we must live out if we are to survive the twenty first century:

Proposal 2.

"Outgrow wars and the making of armaments, particularly

land-mines. Stop trying to solve problems in the mode of

three-year-old children and become truly adult. Abolish the

arms trade and minimize the military. This would save a lot

of money."

Yes indeed - it sounds so easy - but how, oh how, do we even begin to move towards this ideal? 

A good first start would be to read the book and all do our bit, however small that may be, to influence the way our politicians think, support the politicians who share our views, talk whenever we can to any one who will listen to us about a new vision for a wiser politics.  

So get politicians themselves to read the book!! Give a copy to your own politicians, perhaps just before they are going away on holiday!! 

What do you think?

Let's all start our own Ripples of Hope for a better world.

Ripples of Hope

Paint the Church Green

"Yes but the trouble is..." "OK but what difference will that make?" "Why should we be the first to do anything?" "How can we possibly make a difference when we see the sheer vastness of China and what is going on there?" "How can I do anything - I am on my own, consume little, have a very small footprint on this earth already!"
We were sitting around a table in one of those lovely big French style kitchens - where everyone can comfortably congregate and chat and eat and drink and be in fellowship one with another.
Who are we? Last year we formed an ecumenical group of ten or so Christians, to meet together regularly with a common purpose, to try to Paint the Church Green. * This is the name of the excellent little book by Ellen Teague around which we based our discussions, taking a chapter at a time. The book was written specifically as a group course, to enable us to explore the relationship between faith and concern for the natural world, encouraging, it says in the blurb on the back, positive suggestions for change.
And that is when the negative comments started coming. This was our first get together after a summer break, when, somewhat ironically, so many people go away - yes flying, driving long distances, getting away, as Satish Kumar and Peter Owen Jones both remind us, from what we ourselves have created!
And I was frustrated by those negative comments - perhaps reacting more strongly than was diplomatic in the circumstances. And of course they do all have good answers. For another blog post perhaps.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." (Robert Kennedy, in a speech he made in Cape Town on 7 June 1966).

“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world – indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead

There is an old story of a man who was walking along the surf at the edge of the sea. Every now and then he knelt down to pick up one of many hundreds of starfish left stranded by the tide, and threw it back into the water. ‘Why are you doing that?’ asked his friend. ‘How can that make any difference?’ ‘It makes a difference,’ came the reply, ‘to that one.’

So come on people - be positive. Start your own little ripples of hope. As Gandhi is so often quoted as saying: You have to be the change you wish to see in the world.

* The book by the way is published by Kevin Mayhew and I have not been able to find it on Amazon. The red roses were probably flown in from abroad - not a green thing to do when we have so many beautiful flowers of our own to enjoy in their own seasons - as again pointed out to us by Satish Kumar.

The Pope's Visit - continued

One of our local catholic churches held a family fun day at the weekend as recognition of the Pope's visit. There were loads of activities for the children - and for the adults there were a few stalls, one groaning underneath the weight of a vast selection of Fairtrade goods, another displaying information on ethical and green issues that we all as Christians must engage with if we are true to our faith.
After a "bring and share" lunch, the afternoon continued with workshops and concluded with a mass. The event was deemed a success although the numbers turning up were disappointing; perhaps the publicity was not as good as it could have been. But each leaflet picked up and taken away could be the start of one more "Ripple of Hope," each Fairtrade purchase helped to relieve some poverty in a family somewhere. So the effort was not in vain.

Reflections and Ripples of Hope

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Robert Kennedy, in a speech he made in Cape Town on 7 June 1966



Photographs copyright 2010 Eleanor Stoneham

"Some viewers may find the following images disturbing."

We have all heard the cautionary warning at the beginning of yet another dreadful news item on TV. But shouldn't we all be disturbed by these events every time they are broadcast?  

And as if the real life news is not awful enough, man is quite capable of creating things that hurt, as well as making beautiful artefacts that can be a source of healing. The choice is ours.

Many share my dismay at the almost unbelievably violent computer games sold to children, but how many have the courage to take a stand against such things? Patience Wheatcroft in The Times (1) wrote: “Whatever previous research has determined, it is hard to believe that prolonged exposure to such horrors does not breed some nasty ideas in the more impressionable of minds.” She went on to say: “The instances in which youngsters have gone out and committed murders akin to those they have watched are mercifully rare, although there have been a few notorious cases. But instinct suggests that bloodlust cultivated on a computer screen might at least have a desensitising effect, even if it does not drive the player to go out and…(copy that violence.)” She quotes research from the University of Missouri-Columbia that shows that “regular players of violent games suffer reduction in a type of brain activity called the P300 response, which reflects the emotional impact of an image on the viewer. The reaction of gamers to violent images was muted, suggesting that they were desensitised to brutality. They were also found more likely to behave aggressively…” Surely this can be extrapolated to the News Bulletins? Even without the benefit of scientific evidence, common sense tells us that the emotions provoked by such violence can hardly be healing. We are healed by beauty, sensitivity and spirituality, not by ugly brutality. Studies such as these are always controversial and science rarely proves anything, it simply offers balances of probability. Nonetheless those who create such horror for the retail trade seem to be allowing their own wounds to crush them. They certainly have a responsibility for the potential negative effects of their work; for the harm it possibly inflicts on the minds of others. 
We know that people who are subjected to too much gratuitous violence put up a barrier of defense and they become desensitized, a process sometimes known as “psychic numbing.” It is not hard to see that the longer-term effects of such material on the general behavior of the human race could be far reaching. And this brings us back to the appalling and disturbing news items. How dreadful, and what awful implications for us all, if we are not deeply disturbed by those graphic violent images that come into our living rooms every night on the TV news bulletins.

We all need to feel disturbed enough to do something, however small, to heal the world.There are plenty of organisations across the globe addressing the issues behind the news images - they need our time and our funding. Just supposing we all started one tiny Ripple of Hope with a small action every time we saw disturbing images on our news bulletins ...? 

Arun Gandhi travels the world trying to keep alive his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, based on the principles of love and truth. A young teacher in one of Arun’s lectures raised the question of “the corrupting effect of violent movies, TV shows and obscene and violent music on the young people in America.” Should they avoid such things, she asked. This, he replied, placed the cart before the horse. Those who live a life of practicing “truthfulness” would not want to watch or listen to any such media in the first instance. But such a noble life is not so easy for many of us to achieve.

When I was a very young girl we had an illustrated nature book at home. Amongst the photographs was a full page spread of a family of fearsome looking gorillas. They terrified me and made me scream every time I opened the book at that page, but I still insisted on continually going back to that photo! They held a gruesome fascination for me.

Many of us have an almost ghoulish tendency to look at the evil that is around us. We are certainly not very good at protecting ourselves from harmful influences. We therefore have government and industry guidelines that protect us from ourselves! We have rules and regulations that prohibit or restrict certain creative material, such as those that may determine the content and timing of television and radio programs. Films are classified according to their perceived suitability for different audiences. Such rules are often although not exclusively designed to protect the young and vulnerable in our societies. But no one can escape the events that actually happen, that feature in our TV news programmes.

And we all need to do something. Start Ripples of Hope - to heal this fractured world.

1. Patience Wheatcroft, The Times on January 13^th 2006 in an article entitled “Bloodlust at the click of a Mouse.” 

Roots and walls and the Great Recession

There are two primary spiritual responses to what in America is being called the Great Recession; to build walls around us, out of the weakness of fear, or to put down roots to give us strength and hope. So writes Tim King, assistant to Jim Wallis, in Jim's book Rediscovering Values: on Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street (A Moral Compass for the New Economy). The former response of fear comes from the "Greed is good, it's all about me," "I want it now" camp. Too scared to share, too scared to show vulnerability, these people build ever bigger walls around themselves and their ever more "valuable" assets, trying to buy security and happiness. but of course it won't work in the long run.

On the other hand, we can have hope, and grow roots to give us the strength to live by the maxim that enough is enough, we're in this together, and we will look after the interests of the generations coming after us. Roots dig under the surface, reach to the source, give us the strength to meet the challenges ahead - with such a sound source of strength we are not afraid to share, not afraid to be vulnerable, and we can make the world a much fairer and better place.
This is a good book. Even though it is primarily written for the American reader it is just as relevant and accessible for any English speaking audience - the recession has after all been global. But all will be wasted if we don't use this opportunity to change things - don't just go back to the same economic and spiritless behaviour that got us in this mess in the first place. We need real change of heart and mind, and we need spirituality. Tim King recalls the sound wisdom of sharing so that all may have enough, passed down from his great grandmother to his grandmother. I am reminded of an even older wisdom in a passage in Alastair McIntosh' wonderful book Soil and Soul:

McIntosh recalls how Tom Forsyth, a crofter from the Scottish West Highland community of Scoraig, would say: ‘it’s not good enough to do your community-development only at the grass roots. So much of the grassroots are just at the level of spectator sport, television, cigarettes, drink and consumer culture. No, you’ve got to get down to the taproots…that are rooted in the ‘ancient spiritual bedrock.’’ This is where change has to start.
Amen

Euphoria and disaster!

Today is the first day since submitting the final manuscript of Wounded Healers in a Fractured World, aka To heal the fractured Earth, aka Ripples of Hope! So I was feeling quite euphoric when I went down to church to set everything up for our mid week Holy Eucharist. I shared the good news about the book with our lovely priest Penny, made sure everything was done for her to start the service, and then went back into the vestry to ring the bell. All this is something I have been doing probably for 10 years or thereabouts!

So what happened? As I grabbed the rope and gave it the first hard pull to get the bell going, 20 feet of heavy rope ending in a large and very heavy metal hook crashed down from that great height smack into the middle of my head! I now have a gash stuck together with glue and my white mop of hair has pink highlights!!

But praise the Lord for our wonderful community that sprang into action, our super health service who patched me up and a wonderful circle of supportive friends. Bless you all.

What better photos to use today than of Cotswold churches I visited on a short holiday just before Christmas. Anyone know which ones they are?

Final manuscript submitted to publisher

Wounded Healers in a Wounded World - Ripples of Hope - To Heal the Fractured Earth - so many title ideas - not decided which to use yet. Whatever the title, today is a momentous day in my life! I uploaded the final manuscript of my book onto the O Books database today! Publication due 12-15 months hence - watch this space. Soon I should appear with my own page on the O Books website. How exciting is that!!

The photo is on Bournemouth beach - taken when book was called Ripples of Hope!

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the greatest Wounded Healer of all time, I wish everyone a very joyous Christmas filled with love and peace, and I pray for a better world for everyone across all Nations in 2009. May all start our own Ripples of Hope to heal a fractured World

Ripples of Hope

I am now in the process of finding a literary agent who will represent me and my book, Ripples of Hope. Initial responses have been encouraging. It is just essential to find an agent who is in sympathy with the thesis - that we need to return to the ancient spiritual wisdoms in our lives to heal and save our fragile world.

This clearly has a US as well as a UK market - indeed the US, as in so many things, seems to be there ahead of us!

There is another book on a similar theme due to come out next year, about how the spiritual heart needs awakening if our planet is to be healed. It is by Dr Serge Beddington-Behrens, a transpersonal Psychotherapist and Spiritual Educator, whose website is to be found at www.sergebb.com I await his work with interest.

Healing Imperatives for a Fractured World

Ripples of Hope – Healing Imperatives for a Fractured World
‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’
Robert Kennedy Speech 7 June 1966 Cape Town
I am a child of the fifties. In those early post war years we had freedom to play outdoors all day with our friends, with minimal adult supervision. We cycled or walked or bussed to school in all weathers, often alone. We had little money and we lived simply. But we were happy. Changes since then to our material "well being" have been immense. But they seem to have come at an extreme cost. Material wealth does not apparently bring us happiness, peace and contentment. 50 years on we now live in a culture where "success" seems to be based on celebrity status and wealth. We buy too much, we own too much, we hoard too much, we throw away too much and we do not recycle enough. The material possessions of others often create envy and greed, and this fuels its own social problems. We have ethnic and racial problems, terror, violence, public disorder, crime waves, the ‘yob culture’ on our streets, binge drinking, metal detectors in schools to combat knife crime and terrorist attacks in our Western European cities. We feel the need for gated roads and secured driveways. Many of these problems were unheard of, even unimaginable, in my own childhood and youth.
And whilst we live in this material splendour, real poverty is rife. 1 billion in the world live on less than the international poverty level of $1 per day. More than 850 million of the world’s 6.55 billion population starve. These statistics are an affront to our humanity. The injustices of the rich/poor divide bring discontent and envy, particularly with the globalisation of information. Poverty brings disease and lack of education, which itself perpetuates that poverty. Lack of resources also increases vulnerability to natural disasters that in the developed nations we are broadly speaking better able to handle. Inadequate and poor quality housing exacerbates the impact of floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. And how many of these are linked to man’s own arrogant interference with the planet?
We have a love affair with our car, our house, and our material possessions. And we all love a bargain. So much so that many of us are unwilling to pay the premium for fairly traded and fairly priced organic or local goods. We love our sanitised, standardised, pre-packaged meat and perfectly blemish free fruit and vegetables. But when we chase the cheapest mass-produced goods we are at the same time casting aside any ethical considerations regarding the production of those goods. We really do not want to think about the possibly sweat-shop conditions of the labourers, the unrealistically low wages that may have been paid, the cruelty inflicted on helpless animals, that our purchasing behaviour may be promoting.
My generation remembers the Cold War, with the Suez crisis of 1956/57 and the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962. We recall the sense of euphoria when the Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War since 1961, was dismantled in 1989, marking the end of European communism. We hailed a New Era and a new and peaceful world. How wrong we were!
In his Acceptance Speech following receipt of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize the 14th Dalai Lama remarked: ‘As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.’ Sadly his prediction looks unpromising as we start the new millennium. We now live in a more perilous world than we could possibly have foreseen as children of the fifties.
Nick Clegg recently observed, with reference to Britain under the Labour Government in November 2006, that: ‘If legislation was a guarantee of greater public safety, this country would be the safest nation on earth.’ It seems that throughout the developed world Governing and regulatory bodies try to combat every ill of society as it arises by what can only be interpreted as knee-jerk legislation.
Small businesses find it difficult to keep up to date with the continual red tape handed out to them. Private investors have to be protected with an overly complex Financial Service Act and Money Laundering regulations for the simplest of transactions. Schools and hospitals struggle to cope with more tests and targets and league tables. In fact life is becoming far too complex and stressful for us all.
Over zealous legislation not only stresses us. It also takes away our individual sense of ethical, spiritual and social responsibility. And we do have personal responsibilities; towards ourselves, towards each other, towards our communities, our nations and ultimately to our living planet earth Gaia. And of course legislation fails to address our underlying behavioural problems, our selfishness and aggression, our greed and our envy, the seemingly prevalent albeit petty dishonesty amongst so many of us, fuelled by attitudes displayed in popular "soaps" on the TV and in films. Even the normally law - abiding citizens amongst us sometimes ignore the rules and regulations. Simple examples are the widely disregarded restrictions on speeding and the use of hand held mobile phones whilst driving. Such behaviour is obviously selfish. It exposes our fellow road users, pedestrians, cyclists, horses, pets, wild life and other vehicles to mortal danger. Why do we do it? Would we change our driving behaviour if we knew that every other user on the roads around us was a cherished friend or relation or even pet? Of course we would! If we always drove with consideration and care and indeed love for every other person sharing the road with us, traffic regulations would not be needed at all!
It seems clear to me that lasting and real solutions to the many and seemingly intractable problems of the 21st century world in which we live will not be found in Government interventions and interference. The world’s many fractures will not be healed in that way. Positive change must come from within our own hearts, through a healing of our own wounds and our own behaviour. To achieve that we have to rediscover our own spirituality, recognise with new eyes the spiritual in all our material experiences, whether at work or at leisure, and feel that spiritual awakening in our own individual consciences.
This is a healing imperative for our world. ‘There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau. We all have to start striking at those roots.
This has been précised from my book in progress "Ripples of Hope – How to Heal our Fractured World," that explores how healing our own behaviour rather than relying on Government interventions is the real key to solving the world’s problems of climate change and violence that threaten our very existence. For more see www.eleanorstoneham.com

Winchester Writers' Conference 2008

I went to the Winchester Writers' Conference again in June. This has been organised by Barbara Large of the University for many years, and is an extremely motivating and worthwhile experience. Alongside the plenary session on Saturday, (amusingly droll, delivered by Colin Dexter OBE, creator of Inspector Morse), the conference holds workshops and mini-courses over a few days, alongside the opportunity to submit your work to three different agents, publishers, or other writing consultants of choice, for a 15 minute free appraisal. There is also plenty of opportunity to share stories with other budding authors, some of whom each year find a publisher as a result of their visit.

This year I received encouraging feedback for my book in progress, Ripples of Hope, from Annabel Wright, a senior editor at Harper Press, (who had a gorgeous new baby in tow!), Alison Baverstock, author of Marketing Your Book, an Author's Guide, and Zoe King literary agent for the Darley Anderson Literary Agency.

The big problem with the publishing world these days is that is has been swallowed up and changed beyond all traditional recognition by the 21st century celebrity culture, and the so called Me Millennium! Ripples is definitely NOT a self help book in the "How to achieve Material Success and find spiritual happiness" genre! I find though that the commercial potential of a book in progress in the so called Mind/Body/Spirit genre is judged by that very same oxymoron!

Ripples is the antidote to all that. It offers a refreshingly new angle to self-help by applying ancient spiritual wisdom to our daily activities, showing how healing our own behaviour rather than relying on Government intervention is the real key to solving the world's problems of climate change and violence that threaten our very existence!

People in "the trade" tell me that I must show clearly "what is in it for the reader!" Oh dear reader, isnt it sufficient that we will find spiritual peace and leave a planet for our grandchildren to enjoy? Read Ripples to find out How!